Q My 23-year-old daughter now takes her passport with her when going out because she has been turned down by servers who insist that a vertical driver's license indicates she is under 21 even though simple birthday math would prove otherwise. I wonder if others have faced this situation?

Leslie Furney-Howe

Menlo Park

A I'm sure it has happened to others. As a number of readers have mentioned, the change to the vertical format was mainly to prevent underage purchase of alcohol. Before the change, underage licenses and IDs had the photo on the opposite side of the license, but this wasn't an obvious enough change. The difference is predicated solely on the age of the recipient.

California driver's licenses in both formats. (DMV)

Q When will the Valley Transportation Authority fix the signals on Tasman Drive between Lick Mill and North First Street? For years when waiting to turn left at nearby Vista Montana, the trolley signal activates with no train in sight. Must be ghost trains. You just sit and wait.

Malcolm Fay and more

A Here's a holiday present. One of the loop detectors was not working properly and has been fixed. The city also will reset signals at Rio Robles and Tasman to ensure the detectors are working properly there as well.

Q Now that progress is being made on The Alameda project, are they going to take a good look at the traffic lights and reconfigure them? The timing is way off for traffic patterns and it causes a lot of cars to wait or stop unnecessarily. For example, the light in front of the CVS store at Sunol always does a left-turn green light even though no cars are there.

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Jeff Ritchey

San Jose

A Once work ends next year, the city promises it will look at signal timing to make sure the lights are working efficiently.

Q With all the development around the new 49ers stadium, traffic has increased noticeably on Lafayette. Is there any chance of getting the lights timed between Central Expressway and Tasman? It's common to hit almost every light in that stretch.

Ken Jennings

A Santa Clara has plans to upgrade the signal control equipment and retime signals from Reed to Calle de Luna by summer.

Q I wonder if on one of your drives you can take Highway 101 north to Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto on your way to Stanford. This will require you to navigate the very confusing dual exit for Oregon Expressway and Embarcadero, where you'll have to work hard to overcome your natural instinct to take the first or second offramp, and instead wait for the third offramp, which will actually take you to Embarcadero in the right direction.

This was always a confusing intersection, and visitors to our home often end up on Oregon, or more likely on Embarcadero in the wrong direction, where they have to make a U-turn.

Signs came down when construction started a year ago. I can't imagine how many people since then have ended up making that U-turn, or landed right back on north 101.

Greg Brail

Palo Alto

A A new sign will be installed directing northbound drivers to westbound Embarcadero.